Bellator ex Machina
by brenli
Summary: [[Pacific Rim AU]] There are things you can't fight, even as an Angel. Acts of God. At the end of their hope, at the end of their time... but not today. Today, they face the monsters that are at their door and bring the fight to them. Warriors in machines. Angels battling Kaiju. Today, they are cancelling the Apocalypse.


_Foreword: I can't take hiding things like this from the overall readership, anymore. XD Over the years, I began dabbling in AU work. The following is a Pacific Rim AU piece; the first AU piece I've ever written. I feel like it's clear this is me testing the waters. By and large, my work usually has a much wider scope than this; my work is in 15-page chapters of 30-chapter stories of a multi-story series. This can be comfortably read on its own… Though perhaps, still with some explanation._

 _Jusssst in case I've got any completely fresh peoples here – while this has its roots as an Angel Sanctuary gone PacRim, Angels fighting Kaiju AU, this piece (and the AU as a whole) features Nemaelle Mudou, OC for my Chronicles of the Fallen series. Brief mentions of a 'Nero' are another OC… sort of. He has roots as a genderbent version of Nema, for another idea in what's truly a large sea of ideas that have formed over the years with close friends. For the sake of this AU, however, he is a separate person entirely._

 _I haven't written anything else for this AU, which is surprising… and if and when I ever write more for it, there'll be a lot more explaining to do, as there are other OCs from other bodies of work (not my own) that are meant to be in this world. But as they're not here, I'll leave all that alone for now. This has gotten long enough, as it is. XD_

* * *

 **Bellator ex Machina  
** _Words Don't Do Some Things Justice  
_ By: Brenli

She could be very chatty when she wanted to be, and yet... There really were things that words couldn't describe, try as they might, in any and every language. Words don't do some things justice.

She remembered that had been an issue ever since her youth. Oh, all those 'talky sessions...' Nero had tried hard to help, for so many years of her life. He still made himself available to her, even now... And she knew it wouldn't be fair to say he hadn't helped at all. She had no idea where she would be if not for him, and if not for golden-haired Raphael pulling her from rubble and the cold, blood-smeared limbs of her mother.

But she couldn't let go, or forget, or forgive, or... anything. Nero had asked, periodically, to describe... not what had happened, but how she had felt and what she had thought.

How do you explain the loss of your parents? How do you explain watching the life leave the kind eyes of a mother? How do you explain waiting and hoping for a father found? How do you explain eventually… giving up on that? And feeling guilty for that? And feeling robbed. And angry. And ruined. How?

Words don't do some things justice.

To join the Pan Pacific Defense Corps had been her dream as far back as she could remember. Raphael had tried oh so hard to steer her in other directions, but she'd always come back to the PPDC. She couldn't begin to explain it – facing off with the monsters that had taken everything from her? She didn't want to explain it. At the age of 11, she got caught stealing a magazine full of interviews with Jaeger co-pilots and articles about the latest builds. The words were too big for her, but words don't do some things justice.

It was the pictures of the Jaegers themselves. Enormous metal titans... Strong and powerful and everything her young, weak, tender self was simply not. Everything she wanted to be.

Even the co-pilots themselves, really, in their bulky, but intricate suits... They were not all the same, no. Some were more solemn than others. Some were very visibly cocky. But they were all strong; that much could never be disputed. She wanted to be strong.

When she'd gotten caught with that magazine and the shop owner berated her, she stood with her feet firmly planted, even as the tears tracked down her ivory-pale face. She pretended that they weren't there. She blinked them out of her eyes so she could look the shop owner in the face and try to be as strong as an 11-year-old shoplifter could be.

Raphael ended up paying for that magazine, and over the years, more and more magazines were added to her collection. Everything from technical journals to juvenile poster mags. So maybe she had copies of Jaeger blueprints next to pull-out posters of particularly heart-throbby Jaeger pilots on her walls, so what? She studied hard for tests in engineering and rewarded herself with hokey drift compatibility tests.

She remembered getting a perfect score for Michael in all his ginger-haired, tattooed glory, and she remembered laughing it off and turning right back to her schoolbooks... and okay, so maybe she'd kept those test results, even if they were the result of generic, blanket statements that could have applied to plenty of similarly reckless pilots. Words don't do some things justice, but sometimes it's good to believe in them, a little.

She would later show that very man those test results. Years later, but not too terribly long after they'd met.

Oh, words don't do some things justice, and they didn't do their meeting justice. He'd been recently without a co-pilot – something that seemed to happen with alarming frequency, if the articles were to be believed – and had shown up at the Shatterdome to go over a list of candidates with none other than Raphael. And she? She had finally worked hard enough to be there as one of so many mechanics. Nothing remarkable... It had been her very first day there, so she was tailing her golden-haired mentor around, a tablet full of files for every Jaeger and every single tiny repair and alteration listed. She'd had the file for the Alabaster Blaze pulled up, and was asking Raphael why she hadn't yet been given the upgrade to a new core, and it was Michael who answered before Raphael could.

And words... don't. They just... don't.

Anyone who had access to a TV knew Michael to be loud to the point of obnoxiousness, to be wildly short-tempered and even just plain mean. He was not a fan of the paparazzi... But she was no pap, and the ensuing conversation about the Alabaster and all the things Michael wanted for her had been full of laughs and smiles and something that words don't do justice for. It had taken Raphael cutting into one of many questions – why a white Jaeger, anyway? – for Nema to remember herself and to bow out of the room with a blush coloring her pale face. His smile hadn't helped her. Neither did his showing up while in the middle of her work, though their continued conversation did nothing to hamper her concentration. She would venture to say it enhanced her ability to work. Funny... that wasn't how things were supposed to happen, but here they were. She didn't wonder about it. Sometimes wonder was useless. Sometimes it's better not to question.

So she didn't question it when he'd taken her by her gloved hand and began tugging her off to the Kwoon. She didn't question it when she found herself in a room with several other pilots, and Michael told her to get ready. She didn't question the carefully concealed, bewildered concern on Raphael's face – Hell, she outright ignored it. She knew what this was, what was going on.

Words couldn't do that sparring match – or _any_ sparring match they've ever had – any justice. How do you explain feeling alive in the fight? How do you explain the adrenaline and the parried blows like embraces and the careful reading of bodies? Chest heaving, dog tags tucked into the white tank, sweat glistening across flesh and that blue dragon on his body. She hadn't realized that they were matched up, win for win, switching back and forth like they'd planned it, though she'd only met him hours ago. Some say that a fight is like a dance... She could think of a word that might fit a bit better, though it made her blush...

When she'd knocked him on his back and he'd grinned at her for it, Raphael called an end to the match. Michael hadn't needed to say a single thing, because the words wouldn't have done it justice. He smiled and she... she knew.

She knew she would be his co-pilot, one way or another.

She knew that even the word 'lovemaking' didn't do their fight any justice.

It took training and time to get where she is today... though considerably less than anyone had ever expected. Neither she nor he questioned it, never picked it apart. They didn't _want_ to.

Oh, it felt good to not think, anymore. To have something in life that did not require an explanation. How do you explain drift compatibility, beyond the tired old textbook definition? They don't know, and they don't care to know.

All they know is that when they initiated the neural handshake, and they slipped past fragments of things – that shoplifted magazine, a bet with his brother that he'd lost (though he'd never admit it), her mother's arms growing cold around her, the long line of co-pilots that had left him before his brazenness could burn them – it had only confirmed everything they'd shared with each other.

Everything they'd shared together with words, yes. But more importantly, with smiles, or duels... or kisses... or with bodies pressed tight together, her snowy fingers curled around the chain of his dog tags, both of their cries and moans getting lost in shower steam.

They'd known all along that they would synchronize perfectly. Seamlessly... because they'd been like that already, from the day they'd met.

Inexplicable, but it didn't need to be. Words don't do some things justice.


End file.
